Failing to find an ethical longsleeve

There’s no such thing as a sustainable anything in this world

I’ve been on the hunt for some longsleeves recently. They’re the kind of thing I wear all the time when it’s cold, and the two I have from Nudie are some of the hardest workers in my wardrobe. Asket makes amazing tees — the quality you get for €40 is mental, seriously — but they’re slim and I’m looking for something big and boxy. I like to feel slouchy when it’s cold, and it’s nice to have another layer of fabric poking out from underneath whatever hoodie or knit I’m wearing (layering is the key to winter dressing, people!). 

Finding a good, oversized longsleeve should be pretty straightforward, or at least it would be if you don’t let your mind get caught up in a never-ending maze of ethical dilemmas and contradictions. But that’s exactly what happens when you weigh up the impact of your shopping habits in the capitalist hellscape that we call the 21st century. 

LA Apparel’s longsleeves look great. A big, boxy fit, and they’re garment-dyed, so the color is deep and rich. LA Apparel is the brand Dov Charney started after American Apparel went down in flames, and like his old label, the brand claims to be all about treating workers fairly. The problem? Charney has, let’s say, a colorful past. Should we be judging a brand by the contents of their founder’s Wikipedia page? IDK.

Another option would be Everybody World, another basics brand out of LA. Everybody World uses a 100% recycled cotton fabric that’s made with the leftover debris from regular cotton production. Awesome! Slight problem though — these guys are in LA, and I live in Berlin. Does using recycled fabric make up for sending a tee over the Atlantic? It depends. 

I wouldn’t have this problem with Arket, who have not only good longsleeves, but also a store in Berlin I can buy them from. Arket might be a mid-priced basics brand, but they’re owned by H&M Group, so if I bought one, I’d really be giving my money to the fast fashion guys. Is fast fashion defined by its price point, or by the company that owns it? It’s an interesting question.

All of this is to say that there isn’t a right or wrong answer to the oversized longsleeve riddle. You can’t weigh an issue like workers’ rights against transport emissions to say that this or that product is better than the other. Apparel production is a complicated process, and one garment can be processed by dozens of different suppliers in countries all over the globe (there’s a whole section on this in my book, btw). Brands don’t always know where their clothes are made, and even sustainability professionals can’t agree on the data underneath it all. 

We live in a world where companies make money by dumping toxic chemicals into waterways, paying workers poverty wages and spewing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. And that’s just the fashion industry! Trying to figure out which brand or product is better than the next one is almost never going to give you a clear answer, and if you ask me, it’s the wrong question. The entire industry has skeletons in the closet, as we saw in the recent Loro Piana scandal. I’m banging the drum for the 100th time here, but regulation like The Fashion Act is the only answer. 

“No ethical consumption under capitalism” sounds like a Marxist cliché, but it’s true. I do have a few rules I like to go by, though. Fast fashion is a no-go, but that one’s easy. I avoid giant corporations whenever possible too. I like to zoom out from brands and just focus on quality and longevity. How often will I wear something? How well is it made? How does it make me feel? Etc. Etc.

There’s also the fact that online shopping is a miserable, tedious process. Sometimes it’s necessary, especially when you don’t live in a major shopping city, but honestly, I hate the thought of delivery drivers and warehouse workers doing all this work to bring something to my door. It wouldn’t be so bad if you knew every piece you ordered will be worn for years and years, but so much of the time your package goes straight back the way it came because some dumb brand manipulated their e-comm photos or didn’t put a size chart on their website (returns are a big deal, even if they’re sometimes necessary).

The never-ending maze of ethical dilemmas is why second hand is such a great way of shopping. You don’t need to think about any of this stuff when you’re buying something someone else bought already.

But at the end of the day we need to have a bit of perspective. There’s no such thing as a sustainable anything in this world, because the entire world is built on a fundamentally unsustainable system. There’s a very real phenomenon of middle class people fretting about sustainable t-shirts, when the world is ruled by gazillionaires flying around in private jets and pathetic politicians selling out the planet and their kids’ futures by failing to stand up to the world’s most polluting companies. That’s the real problem here. 

So think about the impact of your shopping habits, yes, but don’t sweat it too much. Buy good clothes and wear them a lot— they deserve to be. The real fight is happening elsewhere.

Photo via Arket